The Shifting Gears Approach to Systems Change

Evaluates the Shifting Gears initiative to strengthen state postsecondary, adult basic education, and skills development systems through data, policy change, engagement, and communications. Focuses on the logic model and the policy agenda and action plan

Shifting Gears: Building New Pathways for Low-Skilled Workers to Succeed in the 21st Century Economy

This program specifically focuses on innovative strategies that connected a state's adult basic education system with its community and technical college system. It purposely examines the extent to which the six Shifting Gears states gained "traction on the ground" by incorporating these innovative strategies into existing programs. Gaining this traction among adult basic education providers and community and technical colleges signals that states may be on a positive trajectory toward systems change. By the end of the five-year period, four of the six Shifting Gears states had implemented innovative strategies to serve low-skilled adults. Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota, and Wisconsin succeeded in enrolling a total of about 4,000 low-skilled adults in their innovative programs -- a modest number that is expected to grow considerably during the next several years as these strategies and program are embraced by more organizations within the states. Each of the four states Shifting Gears teams pursued a "career pathway framework," creating new programs to help low-skilled adults transition from adult basic education to community and technical colleges and gain credentials with economic value. The state teams stopped using Joyce resources to finance local projects at the start of Phase Two. Instead, they financed local program development and implementation by leveraging state dollars, encouraging use of traditional funding streams and engaging other stakeholders within state government and in the community (e.g., local philanthropy, community non-profits). These funding strategies have moved the Shifting Gears initiative beyond a "boutique" effort and closer to the desired goal of systems change

Shifting Gears: State Innovation to Advance Workers and the Economy in the Midwest

Outlines five states' policy actions to expand access to postsecondary credentials and careers and innovations implemented through Joyce's initiative, including combining basic skills content with workforce readiness, support services, and specialization

Shifting gears in career: identifying drivers of career development for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander workers in the health sector

This paper explores how the Australian health sector might improve opportunities for career development for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander workers. It considers the current evidence surrounding career development in the health sector, along with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander worker experiences, to develop a usable conceptual framework for change. The following framework is explicitly designed to provide a practical diagnostic tool for stakeholders (policy makers, health organisations and workers) to consider, analyse and identify challenges to career formation across a wide range of diverse health care service settings. The conceptual framework presented herein nominates five key drivers or agents of change in the production of career opportunities for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander workers in the health sector: policy frameworks workplace process individual characteristics intermediary behaviour professional association interventions. The analogy of ‘shifting gears’ is used to identify and explain the key factors (agents) involved in driving career formation, and describe the level of interconnectedness between these drivers. In this context,the analogy is instructive because it demonstrates that gears must work together simultaneously in order to create motion. As one gear turns, the others within the system move as well in response to the pressure being applied. In the health sector, and particularly the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health sector/s, policy is identified in this analysis as the largest and most influential of all the drivers or gears. Policy frameworks are pivotal to almost every aspect of health care delivery including the funding, direction and focus of delivery efforts, and the structures that govern practice guidelines for key disciplines. Policy frameworks also shape employer decision-making processes surrounding patient and practitioner engagement, the legal parameters for patient care and how funding is disbursed. The ability of the health system to maintain high-quality standards of patient care emerges directly from the sector’s ability to source, recognise, retain and reward appropriately skilled labour—in this instance, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander workers in health. A range of skill development policies and program initiatives have emerged at federal, state and local levels of government, each designed to maintain a supply of appropriately skilled Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander workers for the health sector. Specifically, a number of sector-wide initiatives have previously been identified by policy makers as essential: increasing the foundation levels of education for Australia’s First People lifting the job-specific education and training of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander workers within the health sector enticing new workers into the sector increasing the resilience of workers through the provision of additional supports (e.g., mentoring). This paper argues that while these kinds of initiatives are important, it must also be recognised that they all present a somewhat skewed response to career development. While this paper does not discount theimportance of skill development policy, and other supply-side focused efforts, this paper also asserts that skill development is not synonymous with career development. In other words, systemic-level challenges to career development require systemic-level responses. Innovative and effective responses to the challenges faced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander workers in health  can, therefore, only emerge from a more detailed examination of the demand-side factors underpinning career formation and development. A key finding to emerge from this paper highlights that the working conditions and service delivery practices associated with contemporary health settings present diverse challenges for the formation and development of career. The multiple disadvantages faced by many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the labour market means that these workers in the health sector are particularly vulnerable to the threats to career development that have emerged in the health sector over the past 20 years

Road Ecology: Shifting Gears Toward Evolutionary Perspectives

Recent advances in understanding the often rapid pace of evolution are reshaping our view of organisms and their capacity to cope with environmental change. Though evolutionary perspectives have gained traction in many fields of conservation, road ecology is not among them. This is surprising because roads are pervasive landscape features that generate intense natural selection. The biological outcomes from these selection pressures – whether adaptive or maladaptive – can have profound consequences for population persistence. We argue that studying evolutionary responses is critical to accurately understand the impacts of roads. Toward that end, we describe the basic tenets and relevance of contemporary evolution and showcase the few examples where it has been documented in road ecology. We outline practical ways that road ecologists can estimate and interpret evolutionary responses in their research. Finally, we suggest priority research topics and discuss how evolutionary insights can inform conservation in landscapes traversed by roads

Optimized design of multi-speed transmissions for parallel hybrid electric vehicles

In this paper, the optimal design of a multi-speed transmission system in terms of gear ratio, number of gears and gear shifting strategy is investigated for a parallel hybrid electric vehicle. The design procedure starts with the optimization of the transmission configuration to identify the optimal gear ratios for a specified number of gears. In order to avoid solving a complex co-optimization problem that involves numerous control variables for hybrid powertrain energy management (EM), gear ratios and gear shifting, the gear ratio optimization is properly decoupled from the co-optimization problem, while the optimal gear shifting strategy for the optimized gear ratios is determined jointly with the powertrain EM. The separation of the co-optimization makes it possible to solve individual problems by dynamic programming (DP), which guarantees global optimality. To show the impact of optimally designed and controlled transmission on fuel savings, the fuel economy solution of the proposed scheme is compared with the traditional EM and gear shifting optimization method that applies non-optimized gear ratios. Simulation examples verify the effectiveness of the proposed methodology and show the fuel savings incurred by the configuration optimization of the multi-speed transmission system

EET Senior Design Project - IMS Dynamic Display

Indiana University Purdue University IndianapolisThe Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum has a display transmission that is still actively used in IndyCar today. The museum wants to incorporate this transmission into an interactive display, so guests of all ages can see internal gears spin as well as see the transmission shift between its gears. This project includes mechanical and electrical engineering technology students working together to mount wire motors and sensors. The transmission will have a user-friendly interface allowing the guests to change gears and to turn the transmission on and off. The transmission will be driven by a 24V DC motor and uses a 24V DC linear actuator to rotate a barrel cam to change the position of the forks, allowing the gears to get shifted up and down. A metal enclosure houses the electrical components that provide power and control to the system. The outcome of this project is a failsafe and robust system that will operate within the IMS Museum while being continually updated.Electrical Engineering Technolog

Analysis of gearshift processes in an automatic transmission at low vehicle speeds

The increase in the number of speeds in automatic transmissions of vehicles leads to a convergence of gear speeds between adjacent gears. At low vehicle speeds, periodic changes in external driving conditions (for example, hilly or winding sections of roads) can lead to loop shifting between adjacent gears. To simulate this process, a dynamic transmission model is proposed, which can be used in the development of shift control systems and for calibration of the engine and automatic transmission at various operating modes and vehicle conditions

Widening the Doorways of Opportunity: Philanthropic Efforts to Strengthen Postsecondary Education and Skill Development Systems

Outlines foundations' expanding role in raising low-income families' postsecondary educational and skill attainment levels, the policy components of seven philanthropic reform initiatives, and recommendations for WPFP state partners for leveraging change